Here is What Andromeda Would Look Like At Night If It Were Brighter

2/04/2015

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To our weak eyes, Andromeda looks like a blurred stain
of light in the night sky. With decent binoculars, it’s nearly oval form perfects
into view. The light we observe when peering up at Andromeda originates from
the hundreds of billions of stars that create the Andromeda galaxy and its
spiral arms. If each of those bright stars were to shine brighter, the image below
is what it would look like to us on our home planet Earth—a stunning galactic spiral
for all to see. The image above was made by Tom Buckley-Houston, who place over
the Andromeda galaxy on a picture of the night sky with a moon for contrast. Astronomer
Alan McConnachie of the National Research Council Herzberg in Canada, says “The
GALEX image of Andromeda is in the ultraviolet, and the extent of this image is
close to the size of the optical image of Andromeda that everyone is familiar
with. The moon is about 0.5 degrees in diameter; the Andromeda galaxy, measured
on its longest axis, is approximately 2-3 degrees long.”

Composite image by Tom Buckley-Houston

Therefore, if probable for Andromeda to be brighter, it
would appear nearly six times larger than our moon. But at 2.5 million
light-years from us, the Andromeda galaxy is not as effortlessly seen as the
crescent in our night sky. The full scope of Andromeda, according to
McConnachie, is nearly 20 degrees across, or the comparable to more than 40
full bright moons!